Biography

Beginning in the 1950’s most of his works had increasingly distorted and abstract forma that merged human and animals. His father was a forty year old retired Hussars Captain that had recently taken up thoroughbred racehorse trainer. His mother Winnie, was a twenty six year old with an outgoing character that was highly contrasting to her highly-strung argumentative husband. He was raised by the family nurse for he was a sickly child that suffered from asthma along with a violent allergy to horses and dogs. He was given morphine on more than one occasion to relieve much of his suffering when he suffered attacks of asthma. His family moved a lot which was mainly to and from Ireland and
England, which contributed to his much evident feeling of displacement that he reflected and emphasized in his art. He was a typically shy child and enjoyed dressing up that coupled with his inclination and attraction to the same sexed became the subject of many arguments between him and his father. He was even ordered whipped by his father by one of the Irish grooms working the stables. At age 14 he was engaged in sodomy with many of his father’s grooms. They again moved to Herefordshire where Francis spent 18 months boarding at Dean Close School from the third term of 1924 till April 1926 which would constitute the only amount of formal education the artist had. He was banished from the family home when he was caught by his father in front of a mirror admiring himself dressed in his mother’s underwear.

He spent most of the autumn and winter of 1926 in London where he lived on 3 Pounds allowance from his mother’s trust fund. He discovered that he could live by dodging rent and some thievery in London where he tried to use his skills by working as a domestic service for he enjoyed cooking. He became bored and quit. He was also taken out of a position as a telephone answerer at a shop that sold women’s clothing after he wrote a poison pen letter to the shop’s owner. One of his cousins, Diana Watson suggested that he might have taken some lessons in drawing at St martin’s School of Art during the time but the details are sketchy and most are skeptical of this claim.

He discovered that he had the uncanny attribute of attracting rich men which he capitalized on by beginning with a friend of his father who was also a horse breeder Harcourt Smith. He was taken by the man to Berlin where they stayed at the Hotel Adlon where Bacon is said to have seen the work of Fritz Lang, Metropolis. He was supposedly to be made a man by his uncle who soon got tired of him and left off with a woman. He stayed for two months in Berlin whilst his uncle opted to stay for only a month. From there, he went to Paris and met Yvonne Bocquetin, a pianist and connoisseur at the opening of an exhibition there. Francis realized early on that in order to survive in Paris he had to learn the language which through Madame Bocquetin he did. He stayed with her family at their residence for a period of three months that gave him enough time to get to know and speak the French language quickly.